ia 
488 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Male. — Head and neck bright grass-green, with violet gloss, the top of the head 
duller; a white ring round the middle of the neck, below which and on the 
forepart and sides of the breast the color is dark brownish-chestnut; under parts 
and sides, with the scapulars, pale-gray, very finely undulated with dusky; the 
outer scapulars with a brownish tinge; forepart of back reddish-brown; posterior 
more olivaceous; crissum and upper tail coverts black, the latter with a blue gloss; 
tail externally white; wing coverts brownish-gray, the greater coverts tipped first 
with white, and then more narrowly with black; speculum purplish-violet, termi- 
nated with black; a recurved tuft of feathers on the rump; iris dark-brown. 
Female.— With the wing exactly as on the male; the under parts plain whitish- 
ochrey, each feather obscurely blotched with dusky; head and neck similar, spotted 
and streaked with dusky; the chin and throat above unspotted; upper parts dark- 
brown, the feathers broadly edged and banded with reddish-brown, parallel with the 
circumference. 
Length of male, twenty-three inches; wing, eleven; tarsus, one and seventy one- 
hundredths; commissure of bill, two and fifty one-hundredths inches. 
The Mallard is found in New England only as a wan- 
derer, and then only in the western sections in the spring 
and autumn seasons; a few are seen in the waters of Lake 
Champlain, and oc- 
casionally a small 
flock is found in the 
Connecticut River. 
This is the original 
of the Common Do- 
mestic Mallard ; and 
its habits are so well 
known that I will 
give no description 
here. 
This bird breeds in all sections of the United States, 
more abundantly, of course, in the northern than in the 
southern; and less often in the eastern than in the inte- 
rior and western. In most of the Western States, it is 
one of the most abundant of water-fowls; and it breeds in 
all the meadows and by the ponds and streams throughout 
those sections. The nest is built in a tussock of high grass, 
or in a thick clump of weeds. It is composed of pieces of 
grass and weeds, and is lined to the depth of half an inch 
7 
OE EY ee oe 
a rte « 
